I actually struggled quite a bit with how to word that.
...
Sorry if it came out as offensive, that wasn't how I intended it.

It was a bit offensive, and I was poised to start a fight, but your apology has rather punctured my aggression. It is often hard to know how to discuss these issues.

fritterdonut wrote:

But couldn't one also choose to change their sexuality if they really wanted to? I find it kind of hard to believe that you're forced to accept whatever sexuality you were born with and that it's unchangeable.

I expect there are some people whose gender and/or sexuality are malleable, but it's not the norm. Do you think you could choose to change your personal identity to homosexual? or to female? Maybe you could? Or maybe you could brainwash yourself to believing it on a surface-level, but also limit your ability to find a comfortable life by forcing yourself into an awkward (for you) sexuality or gender?

But I'm not sure that question is quite the main point. I think the main point is that the very idea of changing one's sexuality has been a tool of oppression for centuries. The idea doesn't arise in a vacuum, as a thought-game, "I wonder if I, a heterosexual, could change my sexuality to homosexual." Historically, it is a "choice" demanded of homosexuals, "Change yourself to hetero- and we will stop persecuting you". Spreading the idea that you can change your sexuality is justifying that attitude and behaviour, which is very damaging, even when unintentional._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

I expect there are some people whose gender and/or sexuality are malleable, but it's not the norm. Do you think you could choose to change your personal identity to homosexual? or to female? Maybe you could? Or maybe you could brainwash yourself to believing it on a surface-level, but also limit your ability to find a comfortable life by forcing yourself into an awkward (for you) sexuality or gender?

But I'm not sure that question is quite the main point. I think the main point is that the very idea of changing one's sexuality has been a tool of oppression for centuries. The idea doesn't arise in a vacuum, as a thought-game, "I wonder if I, a heterosexual, could change my sexuality to homosexual." Historically, it is a "choice" demanded of homosexuals, "Change yourself to hetero- and we will stop persecuting you". Spreading the idea that you can change your sexuality is justifying that attitude and behaviour, which is very damaging, even when unintentional.

That's why my post had this:

fritterdonut wrote:

And before someone jumps at my throat, I'm not saying that being LGBT is a choice. Nor am I trying to justify the idea of forcing people into different sexualities.

I was specifically trying to negate the "LGBT is a choice" comparison and was specifically talking about people who, after further research, would appear to be specified as having "fluid sexuality". The first two portions of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation#Fluidity (re: fluid sexuality resulting in sexuality change over time, and Freud's idea of innate bisexuality) is very interesting and essentially covers what I was trying to say, I guess. The third section of the wiki article also details the fact that there isn't any proof that someone could consciously change their sexual orientation by sheer force of will, and attempting to can actually be harmful.

Apparently the part of my brain that handles turning ideas into accurate descriptions isn't up to par today._________________Whatever happened to the heroes?

It is pretty toxic. They claim they get to act like this because they have always been bullied but yet can't see that this makes them bullies. They think their mindless hate against people who never really had anything to do with their lives somehow justifies the time that people called them names over their Batman shirt.

. . . says the future metaphorical waste treatment engineer.

I would love to become an engineer. Even in waste treatment. Would make more than I do now for sure._________________www.cobrasphinx.nl

This is a sad comic, she's to young too be making that cynical of a face in panel 3/

I don't know. To me it shows she's a human being and not a 150% teetotaller living only for the fight, and through the fight. I've met enough of that kind to prefer people who allow themselves to doubt, to be discouraged, and to regroup.

This is a sad comic, she's to young too be making that cynical of a face in panel 3/

I don't know. To me it shows she's a human being and not a 150% teetotaller living only for the fight, and through the fight. I've met enough of that kind to prefer people who allow themselves to doubt, to be discouraged, and to regroup.

No, you're missing my point. At that young of an age, you should still be idealistic and not broken (yet) by the harsh realities of the world._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

No, you're missing my point. At that young of an age, you should still be idealistic and not broken (yet) by the harsh realities of the world.

Or you're missing mine. To me it's better news to have Mini 'Nique behave like a human being than some child soldier, whatever her cause. Because at that young an age, one is usually not fighting greater, sinister forces...

Yeah, that's still you imposing an adults view onto a child. I'm not saying she's not human, on the contrary, her reaction is very childlike indeed and it is sad, it's the death of a sort of innocence and to look at it through rose colored glasses as you seem to be trying to do is naive at best.

I would say Xanthe is a teetotaler, Fangirl (does she have a name?) is definitely a kid who has come to believe in a cause yet appears to be reaching a critical point where she might become disillusioned or jaded or just might give up fighting altogether._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Last edited by Darqcyde on Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

Imposing adult thinking on lil' Nickie as in having her spend her childhood fighting super-evil patriarchy and expecting her to be super-hyped about it all the time? Surely it's not ME who's doing it...

Little girls do struggle against these things as they grow up. Some are more aware and well-armed against it than others, but the problem doesn't go away just because they -should- be innocent and unaffected. I would -love- to protect my daughters completely from bullshit patriarchal messaging, and I am certainly doing my darnedest to mitigate their exposure as much as possible. But I'm going to have to teach them how to navigate it and protect themselves from it, too, because I can't protect them from all of it. And it's everywhere.

They're going to get it from media, their going to get it from peers, they're going to get it from other adults in their lives, they're going to get it on the internet, and from books, and from just about anything at all that falls anywhere at all on the Venn Diagram of "social" and "media," with a concentration at the intersection.

Minique is about the same size as Slick, so people might have to reconsider seeing her as a 'child' if they're going on height here.

It's not the height, it's just that there's something child-like in the way she's represented. LIke on that bench scene with "Big" 'Nique. Or the way she points her finger at the tomato-carrying Sleaze.